Just to be absolutely clear, folks here are successfully running > 1TB partitions on S3 OLEDs using stock 11.0k/m kernels right? I know sometimes when I mod boxes, I can lose track of what I'm running or whether I did something first with a hacked kernel then went back to stock.

Regarding JMFS dealing with the Apple Free partition created at the end of drive by MFS Live, would it have been possible to delete that partition using a partition editor (pdisk?) before running JMFS? I know it's not something you'll go back and try now, but perhaps something to keep in mind if it ever comes up again with someone else's upgrade.

Regarding the 1TiB partition limit in the kernel, the following led me to that idea (I was wrong about jamie's patch being signed to unsigned int, it was 32-bit int to 64-bit int)

You can have only 16 partitons per drive.
128 character device names in the superheader devlist. /dev/hda10 /dev/hda11 .....1 TiB partition limit due to linux Kernel (use of signed int to check # of sectors )
2 TiB partition limit due to Apple partitition table being used (use of unsigned int to reference # of sectors)

- User is prompted "Y" or "N" to limit a partition to 1 TiB when expanding. If you have a drive smaller than 1TiB you won't get that prompt.
If you want to use a 1.5 TB or higher drive, answer "Y" so you can at least use 1.2 TB of it. As of Tivo software 11.0, linux kernel used can not
support any partition higher than 1 TiB so if you answer "N", it won't work properly in your TiVo unless you have the specially hacked linux kernel
installed that will allow it.

Click to expand...

From Jamie

Here are custom Gen05 and Gen06 kernels built from the 9.4.1 tivo kernel sources. Be sure to read and understand the first post in this thread before attempting to us these custom kernels.
...An additional patch is include here that changes some 32 bit ints in the tivo ide-disk.c driver to 64 bit ints. This allows the kernel to work with partitions > 1TiB. Without this patch, you'll get "kernel: idedisk_dosectors: Access beyond end of drive" errors with partitions > 1TiB. Note that there is still a 2TiB partition size limit imposed by the ancient apple partition table format the tivo still used.
...

Click to expand...

I was also led to the impression that originally the latest versions (at the time) of MFSLive and WinMFS mfsadd would blindly expand to the end of a 2TB drive. Coupled with the 1TiB partition limit in the linux kernel, this made MFSLive incompatible with 2TB drives (unless you started with a 1TB factory image). I think Spike added that WinMFS question about whether to break the 1TB partition limit to stop the blindly expand behavior so people could use 1.5/2TB drives with kernels that didn't support > 1TB.

So I *think* (but could be mistaken) MFSLive mfsadd would do the same expansion to end of drive that WinMFS is doing with 2TB drives, it just wouldn't ask you the question. I can't really verify at the moment since I don't have a 2TB drive (yet).

Thank you for being patient with me, I'm slowly figuring things out and the cobwebs are clearing from long-term neglect.

to get rid of the Apple Free partition and it doesn't work, in that after you remove it, it puts itself right back. It's just the way the Apple Partition Map works--a non-partioned space gets labeled as an Apple Free partition.

Using WinMFS I put a 648 image (11.0k) on a 2TB and wound up with a 1.6TB partition 15, and it's been working fine for months--updated itself to 11.0m the other day without a hitch and everything.

I don't know if MFS Live will do that or not, I'll have to experiment.

MFSLive will put a very small Apple_Free partition at the end of the drive after you expand it. Not sure if it does it in all cases, but it did it in all the cases that I have tried. The only way I know how to erase the Apple_Free partition is to do it manually with a hex editor. I have not found a way to accomplish that using pdisk alone.

The only way I know how to erase the Apple_Free partition is to do it manually with a hex editor. I have not found a way to accomplish that using pdisk alone.

Click to expand...

Perhaps you can use

dd bs=512 skip=N count=1 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1

Once you determine "N" for partition 16.

Partition 16 should be in the same location for everyone so the command should be universal (and harmless if you don't have a partition 16)

If it needs to be some special format rather than all zeros, then I'm sure you can read from the partition map of a 15 partition drive and save the output to a file to write back onto drives that have partition 16.

Does anyone know if there are any S3 OLEDs that run MFS64 (ie their "magic" in the Super Header is ebbafeed)

I'm trying to recover a drive stuck in GSOD bootloop and noticed the magic got set to 37353033 (which is apparently why WinMFS wasn't recognizing the drive as a tivo drive anymore) I think the original magic was abbafeed (indicating MFS32), but I am not sure.

MFSLive will put a very small Apple_Free partition at the end of the drive after you expand it. Not sure if it does it in all cases, but it did it in all the cases that I have tried. The only way I know how to erase the Apple_Free partition is to do it manually with a hex editor. I have not found a way to accomplish that using pdisk alone.

Click to expand...

Apparently one of the "delightful" quirks of the Apple Partition Map is that each partition has info in the header of where all the other partitions are, so you can't just hex erase the last partition and remove it from the Map, you have to hex edit each partition to reflect the removal.

Does anyone know if there are any S3 OLEDs that run MFS64 (ie their "magic" in the Super Header is ebbafeed)

I'm trying to recover a drive stuck in GSOD bootloop and noticed the magic got set to 37353033 (which is apparently why WinMFS wasn't recognizing the drive as a tivo drive anymore) I think the original magic was abbafeed (indicating MFS32), but I am not sure.

Click to expand...

Well I can answer this question now, my S3 OLED is using MFS32 with magic abbafeed.

I was able to recover from my GSOD loop.

I had two ideas on how to get out of it. One way was to try and change the magic from 37353033 back to abbafeed. I *think* that 37353033 magic is what is telling TiVo to do keep going into green screen KS 57 mode so my thinking is if I changed it back to abbafeed, it would just boot normally.

I didn't get around to trying that because my other option ended up working. I just dd_rescued the GSOD loop drive onto a new drive and put the drive back in the TiVo. It was able to complete the KS 57 and I got all my shows back.

Apparently one of the "delightful" quirks of the Apple Partition Map is that each partition has info in the header of where all the other partitions are, so you can't just hex erase the last partition and remove it from the Map, you have to hex edit each partition to reflect the removal.

Does anyone know if there are any S3 OLEDs that run MFS64 (ie their "magic" in the Super Header is ebbafeed)

I'm trying to recover a drive stuck in GSOD bootloop and noticed the magic got set to 37353033 (which is apparently why WinMFS wasn't recognizing the drive as a tivo drive anymore) I think the original magic was abbafeed (indicating MFS32), but I am not sure.

I tried using WinMFS to copy the drive, but WinMFS wouldn't recognize it. It turns out (I believe) TiVo sets the magic cookie identifier for the MFS Super Header to be 37353033 which then triggers the GSOD mfschk (normally the Super Header magic cookie is abbafeed for mfs32 volumes and ebbafeed for mfs64 volumes). WinMFS will only recognize a drive as a TiVo drive if the Super Header magic cookie is abbafeed or ebbafeed. The reason my drive started the GSOD loop was because it had a very small amount of bad sectors. Kickstart 57 does not like bad sectors at all.

Anyway, I ended up using dd_rescue to copy the bad 750GB drive onto a 1TB drive I had available. As an aside, there were only 64KB bad sectors out of 750GB. I didn't expand but immediately put the 1TB drive back into TiVo to let it finish the Kickstart 57, which it did in about 3 hours.

When it was done, TiVo booted and all my recorded shows were available. I tried connecting to the mothership to refresh guide data which was now 3 days from running out. The connect worked, but the Guide Cache and Indexing were taking forever (over 12 hours and counting).

Until the Guide Cache and Indexing are complete, even though you have guide data in the program guide, none of your season passes will schedule shows to record. Also when you view upcoming episodes, there will be none.

Anyway, I figured the Guide Cache and Indexing was just stuck or hung, possibly due to some issues with the disk.

What this does is let you choose your zip code and video provider. It will delete your program guide info and redo it from scratch. Your ToDo list is preserved and so is your list of channels you get. This is unlike the Clear Program Information and To Do list option, which will delete your Season Passes.

The new guide download took around 2hrs to download and index and I was back in business. Guide Cache and Indexing were complete.

My ToDo list was still empty, but this was easily solved by going to the ToDo list and reordering 1 season pass entry. After that all the scheduled shows showed up immediately.

Hope this helps someone else who might get stuck in a Kickstart 57 GSOD loop.

Not sure what the S03 problem entails, never seen it on my S3 OLED, is it a TiVoHD thing? If it is a guide issue, then I think there is a good chance reselecting the provider will address it.

When I did the provider reselection, it was sitting in "Preparing for download" for a long time, maybe 45minutes. I could hear the disk seeking a lot so I imagine it was probably removing a lot of old guide structures, and likely has the ability to repair/blow away guide data issues.

I also now realize what likely started the random reboots on my drive.

It was actually working fine for a few days after the recapping of the power supply.

I ended up watching some pretty old recordings. One of those shows rebooted consistently at the same spot so I deleted it. I believe that was the show that had the 64kb of bad sectors.

Now when I deleted the show, that disk location probably was scheduled to be freed up and available, but it didn't happen immediately. It got stuck in the recently deleted list.

Coincidentally 2 days later, I ran out of disk space on the unit as it recorded a marathon of shows I wasn't expecting. At that point I believe the space occupied by the show got freed up and started being used to buffer livetv.

My theory is whenever livetv hit those bad sectors the unit would reboot. The reboot could happen while you were doing anything, program guide, setup, diagnostics, season pass, etc. because it was livetv operating in the background. This correlates well with the 30-60 minute random reboot.

I believe *if* I had just left that bad show and never deleted it, I would still be happily chugging along oblivious to the hard drive issue (as long as I wasn't stupid enough to initiate a kickstart 57 like I did)

So the moral of the story is if you encounter a show that keeps rebooting in the same spot, it is probably best to just leave it alone (and put a big postit on the front saying do NOT run kickstart 57). It can probably last a long time even with the disk errors as long as that corrupt show is essentially "locking out" the bad sectors from further use. Of course, when you have time it is best to start initiating data migration to a new drive using dd_rescue, but best to do that on your own terms, rather than being forced to by random reboots or GSOD boot loop.

Could someone please remind me...I have a TiVo HD that died. I thought it was the power supply, but it turned out to be the drive. I have a drive from another TiVo HD tht has never been used. I know I would lose recordings and need to run C&E if the drive had been used.

Since the drive hasn't been used do I still need to run C&E? I swapped it and it booted fin. System info correctly shows lifetime, but the TSN is all zeros. It is also running some old version 8 software so I am forcing calls to update.

Could someone please remind me...I have a TiVo HD that died. I thought it was the power supply, but it turned out to be the drive. I have a drive from another TiVo HD tht has never been used. I know I would lose recordings and need to run C&E if the drive had been used.

Since the drive hasn't been used do I still need to run C&E? I swapped it and it booted fin. System info correctly shows lifetime, but the TSN is all zeros. It is also running some old version 8 software so I am forcing calls to update.

Just adding a data point since I don't see the drive model listed when I search the forums.

I upgraded my TiVo HD with a Western Digital Blue 1TB drive (WD10EZEX) about 3 weeks ago when my original drive started acting up. Everything went smoothly with the upgrade, and the TiVo has been working just fine ever since.

I think I read elsewhere that "desktop" drives aren't recommended in TiVo's, so I may have problems on down the road. I found a good deal on the drive so I thought I would go for it. Plus, I had alot of urgency because my original drive was quickly dying.

Just wanted to share in case someone else is looking at that same drive.

I think I read elsewhere that "desktop" drives aren't recommended in TiVo's

Click to expand...

That's totally a myth. In fact, using anything BUT desktop drives is a waste of money. Get the BIGGEST (as per the limits of the hacking tools currently), SLOWEST drive possible to save money.. Tivos can't use all the speed the drives already have..

Yeah, it's been confirmed that you can use a 2TB in any S3, the 648, the 652, the 658, and WinMFS will do the job (but you have to do the expand as a separate step instead of accepting the offer at the end of the copy/restore, for some reason), no need for jmfs, provided you're installing an image that's updated at least to 11.0k (which has been around for a few years now, so it's rare not to have it), or provided you do not expand until letting it phone home and update to k (or maybe straight to m).

jmfs still needed for S4s, though, if you want to copy and expand.

Click to expand...

Unitron, I need to ask a S3 & S2 upgrade question and can you PM me if possible.